Ancelotti's Brazil Edge Japan in World Cup Comeback
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- Carlo Ancelotti's Brazil trailed Japan at halftime in their World Cup last-32 tie in Houston before mounting a comeback sealed by a 95th-minute goal from Bruno Guimaraes and Gabriel Martinelli, 45 minutes from Brazil's earliest World Cup exit since 1966.
- The fightback was Brazil's first comeback victory in a World Cup knockout game since beating Turkey in the 2002 semi-finals, ending a 24-year drought.
- Ancelotti made only one enforced substitution at the break — Endrick replacing the injured Lucas Paqueta — but shifted Brazil from intricate short passing (12 crosses first half) to a crossing assault (28 crosses second half).
- Casemiro's equalizer came from the aerial approach, with runners arriving on the blindside of Japan's defenders at the back post.
- Ancelotti, a five-time Champions League winner and Brazil's first-ever foreign World Cup coach, has now won 9 of his first 15 games in charge.
- Brazil advance to face the winner of Ivory Coast vs Norway in the last 16, keeping alive their bid for a sixth World Cup title.
Why it matters: Brazil dodged a historic humiliation — elimination in the last 32 by an Asian side — and kept their sixth-title bid alive, with Ancelotti's first knockout test as Brazil's first foreign World Cup coach revealing both his tactical flexibility (switching to 28 second-half crosses) and his trademark calm under pressure. The win validates the football establishment's bet on a foreign coach for the first time in Brazil's history.
